Tough budget decisions – adult social care savings

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Feedback Updated 3 Mar 2016

We Asked

We wanted your views on how we were proposing to make the savings in Adult Social Care.

You Said

The vast majority of people who responded to the consultation were concerned about the long-term harm that would be caused to people and the services that support them.

We Did

Following the consultation, the proposed savings were amended to take account of the additional money that would be raised by the social care precept for Council Tax and what people told us through the consultation. For some services this meant not going ahead with the saving or revising the amount we were planning to save.

Results Updated 3 Mar 2016

Over 1800 people took part in the consultation, although some people submitted responses more than once. People took part in many different ways:

Overview

We will have £40 million less to spend on adult social care services by March 2019. This is in addition to the £28 million that we have already saved from these services since 2013. We wanted your views on how we were proposing to make the savings.

The consultation summary is available to download below if you want more information on what we were proposing. There was also a video people could watch (subtitles available).

The consultation ran for 8 weeks. People could share their views by completing the online or paper survey; coming to one of the consultation drop-in events; or sharing their comments by letter, email, phone or video.

Why We Are Consulting

The savings we need to make mean making difficult decisions about which adult social care services we continue to invest in. The consultation explained how we proposed to make the savings, providing detailed information on the three main areas of saving in the first year (2016/17) and a summary of savings over the following two years.

What Happens Next

The Council’s Cabinet considered the final savings proposals for the whole Council at its meeting on 26 January 2016. The proposals were then considered by all elected councillors at the Full Council meeting on 9 February 2016.

Everything you told us in surveys, letters, emails and conversations was shared with decision makers. We provided a detailed summary of the consultation results and all your responses were available for Councillors to read or watch in the week before Cabinet.

The approved budget will see £369 million spent on services in the coming financial year. To help lessen the strain on adult social care, Councillors voted to go ahead with the proposed council tax rise by 3.99%.

The papers for Full Council meeting can be viewed here. For details on what was agreed for adult social care services please see the 'Results' section below.

We will now be working with providers to tell people who use the affected services in the most appropriate way and format. If you need the information provided here in another language or format, such as Easy Read, please contact us.

We will also work with partners and providers to support people through the changes. This might mean looking at alternative services and giving them time to prepare.

The Council has a statutory duty to safeguard all East Sussex residents. This duty will be particularly important when so much is changing. We will also continue to welcome complaints as this helps us to ensure that everyone is treated fairly and with respect.